Julian Astle writes about politics and public policy. He previously worked as director of CentreForum, the liberal think tank, and as Political Advisor to Paddy Ashdown when leader of the Liberal Democrats. He is @JulianAstle on Twitter.

Why Andy Burnham won't admit he is against free schools

When I read Andy Burnham's deeply confused explanation of Labour's position on free schools, I couldn't work out what was going on at first.

One possibility was that he genuinely didn't know what he thought, but didn't want to admit it.

Another was that he knew exactly what he thought – that free schools are a terrible idea – but decided to hedge his bets, leaving open the possibility of supporting them if they turned out to be a rip-roaring success (the clue was his promise of a "pragmatic" approach).

Another explanation was that he wanted to oppose free schools but didn't feel able to do so while the Blairites in his party remained so strongly supportive of them. After all, he would have known that Blair might pop up at any time to offer Michael Gove his unequivocal support, as he did this week in an interview in the Sun. And he would also have known that Peter Hyman – formerly a speech writer to Tony Blair, now a secondary school teacher – was busy setting up a free school of his own with support and advice from former academies minister, Andrew Adonis.